to I CHRONICLESned by homosexual propaganda; communities are disruptednby forced busing; and the exercise of religion is drivennout of public life as the nation’s majority of believing Christiansnare compelled by law to be ashamed of their Savior’snname.nThe one thing American conservatives used to have clearnin their heads was the danger inherent in ideologicalndemocracy, which they traced — quite correctly — to thenFrench, not the American Revolution. But now, likenTennessee Pentacostalists, they are beginning to measurenthe strength of their convictions by the ability to pick up andnhandle this dangerous serpent. They will go to neady anynlengths to show their willingness to reconcile democraticntheory with conservative principle. What is more alarming,nsome conservative writers are beginning to insist thatndemocracy — in the sense of equal rights — is the summumnbonum, and they denounce anyone who declines to worshipnat this shrine as a gentile, one of the “lesser breeds withoutnthe law.”nThere is hardly a political animal — liberal or conservative—nwho is not ready to endorse the American Federationnof Teachers’ recent declaration that democracy is “thenworthiest form of governance ever conceived,” withoutnquestioning what union boss Albert Shanker and his colleaguesnmean by such a statement. Much that is in then”Education for Democracy” is welcome. The signers—nsuch luminaries as retired tennis star Arthur Ashe, formernPresident Jimmy Carter, and the leader of the oncepowerfulnAFL-CIO, Lane Kirkland—call for a beefed-upnhistory curriculum and greater attention to “the wholensweep of Western civilization.” But what they mean bynhistory or civilization is a puzzle. Most of their examples arendrawn from the past 40 years of American politics, and fornall the details they provide, the democrats might be describingnthe world of Dune.nIt is the mark of the true-believing democrat never tondefine his terms. Either you are with him or you are “annextremist” (on the right or left). The nearest “Education fornDemocracy” comes to explicitness is a list of democraticnvalues: “Devotion to human dignity and freedom, to equalnrights, to social and economic justice, to the rule of law, toncivility and truth, to tolerance of diversity, to mutualnassistance, to personal and civic responsibility, to selfrestraintnand self-respect” … but the task of filling up thenblanks I’d rather leave to you.nWho doesn’t profess respect for the rule of law or truth orntolerance? But what do they mean by social and economicnjustice? Ordinarily, in the Soviet empire, Nicaragua, ornScandinavia, it means nothing less than redistribution ofnwealth through taxation and special policies designed tonhelp the unproductive at the expense of the productive. Itnmeans in the U.S. all the cozy legal advantages given to thenAFL-CIO, which have enabled union bosses to underminenindustrial productivity. It means, in short, the sort ofnsoft-core Trotskyism that has been the mainstay of Northeasternnintellectualism for so many years. “Social justice,”ncommented Irving Babbitt, “means, in practice, class justice,nclass justice means class war and class war, if we are tongo by all the experience of the past and present, meansnhell.”nIf Mr. Shanker were only putting it forward as his privatenopinion that democracy is the greatest little form of governmentnin the world, one could pardon his patriotic zeal andnjoin him in his pledge of allegiance. But he seems to expectneveryone, especially teachers, to endorse it. By implication,nany teacher (whether leftist or conservative) whose educationnis good enough to make him immune to the propagandanof John Dewey and Walter Lippmann should not benteaching in an American public school. The most obviousnnext step will be the regulation of private schools throughnsome tuition tax credit scheme and, finally, the empowermentnof the Secretary of Education as the curriculumncommissar of the United States. Then we shall all be suchngood little democrats, i.e., docile subjects of the total state,nthat no one will have to worry about freedom of expressionnever again.n”/ would not want to live in a world that didnnot include This World.”n- Ralph MclnernynMail this coupon and your ctiecl< to:nThis World, 934 N. Main St., Rocl